Until recently there I was unaware of the absolute importance of a humble device. I never really learned to appreciate all that it does and it is the simple Valve. There are huge amounts of valves working hard in the home and also Industrial Valves for all types of equipment. They are not just there for the moderation and flow of liquids. The term and description of the word Valve relates to a diverse amount of valves and what they do and the form they take.
The first valve comes from the Roman time. The word valve is derived from a Latin word and the first one was quite revolutionary and it allowed fresh water in but it would not let wastewater back by the means of a gravity flap in the pipe. Valves are just about everywhere busily controlling the flow of liquid and temperatures or the mixtures of gases.
What types are of valves are there? Simply loads. Here are some of the more common ones.
Hydraulics – This is a Greek word for water and pipe. The hydraulic valve works on a pressure and movement basis that uses the flow of liquid to regulate itself.
Pneumatic. It’s our friends the Greeks, again, who have given us this word and this valve uses pressure from air or rather nitrogen and carbon dioxide. One of the most vivid examples of this is when it’s used in Robot Wars by the Chaos II team to flip a competitor.
Manual – As it says, this is where a valve is controlled not by systems but by or materials but your standard human being. This is where they will open and close a ball valve for example.
The solenoid valve. This is a modern valve, there are no examples of this from ancient times as it uses electromagnetic power to make the necessary changes to the valve so that it operates as it should. The technology of our modern era allows us to leave this valve to just get on with it.
The Motor valve. As with the solenoid valve this is where technology has made our lives easier and our control of valve’s easier as well. We can basically leave them to it like the solenoid.
This is just a short overview of what valves can and do for us in our daily lives. Without them we would find things very difficult to get done.
